Gary Davis, the man.

I have a new crush. His name is Gary Davis and well into his 60's. I'm not kidding.

Ben and I pulled up to this gated estate in the sticks just outside Auburn. Damn, is that a track? We knew he showed his bikes and stuff but we didn't think much about it...except maybe that he had a bunch of beaters and collected junk? Thirty minutes later, "I've always wanted to marry a stuntman" I heard myself say...

Turns out Gary is kind of a badass. A professional stuntman his whole life, he and Rex Blackwell beat Evel Knievel's jump record in 1972 for one, then did something like 300+ jumps and still directs/coordinates stunts on shows & films like Against All Odds, Viva Knievel, Terminator 2 and all the Fast and the Furious's. Check him out in some CHIPS action...

I know I'm a nerd for listing all this but I have to say he was very nice. And modest. I mean, we thought we were just going to test drive a bike...(which by the way, he deemed not right for me and my purposes.) This place was filled with at least 100 mint condition motorcyles..and running. A whole section of BSA's, another section of Honda 305's, more Yamaha RD400's..it was insane. It was a museum.

Showing us a refinished Matchless..

..and I don't even remember what this was...but its awesome.

Beyond this wall of fame was a lounge type room, complete with leather sofas, huge fireplace, carpeting, other awesomeness.., beyond that was another huge room with all the unfinished bikes...almost like the motorcycle graveyard!...except organized and closer to a personal junkyard. Gary said he can't resist a bike when he sees one. Fawning, fawning...

I wanted one of these so bad, (1967, when Honda first came out with the Scrambler, CL160's) though it's not really what I'm looking for right now...plus, I have a feeling he didn't really want to sell anything anyway. He told us these were the bikes that were parked out front of his high school when he was a kid because they were so popular...all lined up in the parking lot. Can you imagine? Were people just cooler back then in general?

After an hour or so of chatting and hanging out, he gave me his personal go-to guy in LA's # to see if he has anything in his archive that's up my alley. We said we'd keep in touch and shook hands...(I'm never washing my hand again.) Ben and I decided we both had a crush on him and that we needed to figure out a way to get in his will. Viva la Gary!

Did I mention this is his front yard?